Where’s the ‘Thanks’ in Thanksgiving?

One of the most cherished American holidays is Thanksgiving, a day that Abraham Lincoln officially declared in 1863, in praise of “our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” In the early 1900s, Gimbels and Macys saw dollar signs and commandeered the celebration, evicted the heavenly Father altogether, added a parade with Santa Claus, and the rest, as they say, is history. Or is it? Every American school child learns of the harvest feast where the friendly local Indians broke bread and shared turkey with the black-hatted, big-buckled European Pilgrims in a festival of interracial harmony and mutual respect. Yet, there is almost nothing true about this idyllic scenario–not even the turkey. This comforting mythology has concealed some of the bloodiest acts of race hate in American history. Let us pull the stuffing out of this Thanksgiving myth and get down to the bones of the Thanksgiving idea, which has some harsh and disturbing truths.

First, let us look at these so-called Pilgrims. Most people don’t know that there were 102 British passengers on the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower, but those we now call the Pilgrims numbered only 35–the rest were an assortment of dregs, cutthroats, and criminals. Their journey to Indian lands was financed by wealthy Englishmen who sought profits from the exploitation of the lumber and furs found there in abundance. The quest for “religious liberty” was hardly the concern of these investors and one would be hard-pressed to find God anywhere near the venture. The “Pilgrim Fathers”–who, interestingly, called themselves Separatists, not Pilgrims–came to this new world with many more muskets than bibles; indeed, they came ready to conquer–not to pray. By the time the Mayflower arrived, the Indians, who had barely survived an earlier invasion of Europeans, shunned contact with these newcomers and retreated inland.

They were smart. As soon as the Europeans set foot upon the shore (there actually never was a Plymouth Rock), and before the whites even saw their first Indian, they set about to pillage their surroundings:

• They found an Indian food storehouse and ransacked it, stealing the corn and a trap for hunting game.

• They desecrated the gravesite of an Indian child, stealing the valuable contents and throwing the body back.

• They broke into two Indian homes when the families were gone and stole their belongings.

To the Indians this was frighteningly familiar. Still, they tried to make peace with these strange and violent people from across the sea. The Indian Squanto had been kidnapped in an earlier British invasion and forcibly taken to Europe. Somehow he made his way back to America, and, having learned English, he was sent out to “greet” the newcomers.

Despite the assistance of the Indian farmers the Pilgrim crop had failed miserably in 1621, but the Indians produced twenty acres of corn without which the colonists would have surely perished. They held a feast and invited the Indian leader Massasoit, and it was Massasoit–not the Pilgrims–who then invited ninety or more of his fellow Indians. No turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie was served; no prayers were offered and the Indians were not invited back. The Pilgrims did however consume a good deal of beer. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day, which they preferred even to water. It may be about the only Thanksgiving tradition that has survived intact to this day.

But there is more troubling reality behind this interracial gathering. The Europeans erected an 11-foot-high wall around their entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out. Just days before the “feast,” a gang of Pilgrims actively sought to murder a local Indian leader. They eventually killed and beheaded an Indian, brought the head to their Plymouth compound, where they impaled it on a wooden spike, and displayed it for many years.

By 1636, these Pilgrims had been joined by many more even “holier” European colonists known as Puritans, and their thirst for Indian blood could only be described as insatiable. They trapped some 700 Pequot Indian men, women, and children near the mouth of the Mystic River and attacked them with unrelenting military force. Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken. They wrote proudly of the massacre: “To see [the Indians] frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.” This event marked what was most likely the first actual Thanksgiving.

Soon, the European intruders were in a full-scale war with the Indians. A people who had for thousands of years been peaceable farmers were now forced into humiliating submission. They struck out in 1675 with raids on several isolated frontier towns but the unrelenting aggression of the white man was too much to overcome. It took only a half a century for the Europeans to annihilate the Red nation–it must have been a record even for them. Historian Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end: “The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences…were all aimed at the same goal–unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England.”

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered the Indian leader Metacomet, his body was cut into four parts and “left for the wolves.” His hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth where it was set upon a pole on Thanksgiving Day, 1676! Metacomet’s nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being that the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust of the Red Man, Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a “General Thanksgiving”–not to celebrate the brotherhood of man, but for “[God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors…In defeating and disappointing…the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands…”

Just two years later one could reap about a $100 reward in Massachusetts for the scalp of an Indian. According to one scholar, “Hunting redskins became…a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were worth good money…”

If this is the first time you have heard any of this history, don’t get mad at the Final Call. Ask your teachers why they didn’t tell you. Ask them what’s behind their other cherished holidays and traditions.

Enjoy your turkey.

[Alan Muhammad is a citizen of the Nation of Islam. Much of this information with references can be found in the book The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide for Black Folks (2003)]

Odd that black racists can call Thanksgiving a racist holiday, given that it was Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of a war fought to end slavery, was first to make it an official holiday. But that’s what racists do.

@Bevo You gotta be joking. its 2010 and you’re still recycling the LIE that the Lincoln freed the slaves? GTHOH! Even a 5th grader knows that the true purpose of the war was to preserve the Union you idiot. Lincoln cared nothing about freeing the slaves.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as punishment for a crime. This was a war measure not love for the slave because slavery kept going in many states.

This exactly why we should not be celebrating Thanksgiving. It’s a dang CRIMINAL holiday. America is backwards as hell and we keep urging this madness on by observing this crap.

@Bevo You stupid. Race is an issue in this country regardless if you choose to put your head in the sand. If race wasn’t an issue then you wouldnt see Obama being attacked like this everyday. Wake up and stop bringing this tissue paper weight arguments that only waste value comment space. Grow up and read a book

Once again, it is evident that the best method people have in challenging the scholarship of the followers of the Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan is to resort to “name calling”. Step up your arguments.

The time is up for that. We’re not moved by it. Either disprove what Brother Alan has laid out or humbly state that you can not. Parse his words, and dissect his sources if you want to bring a true challenge.

This is not presented from emotion. This is presented in a scholarly manner with research to back it up. It’s not hate. It’s truth. We’re not racist and we will not apologize for loving our people.

It always makes me laugh to hear White people call Black people racist! LOL….did we ask to be brought to this country to be made into slaves? Did we ask to by lynched and burned at the stake? Did we ask you as our slave masters to rape our women and impregnate them with your seed? Did we ask to be sold on the auction block like cattle?

Black people not racist…and if we are we learned it from the slavemaster.

This definitely won’t detour me from enjoying my turkey but I agree with the statement “This comforting mythology has concealed some of the bloodiest acts of race hate in American history.”

In terms of race in America, even as I White male I am in tune with my privileges that i have and I take advantage of them everyday. It may sound harsh but hell America is the land of opportunity. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I for one don’t see a problem with Brother Jesse blogging about the issues of his people. That’s his right and its necessary because as a whole, Whites not bending over backwards to help anyone but ourselves. Sure some are but majority not. Racism is alive and well. I don’t consider myself one but I certainly benefit from the racism of my fellow man.

That’s just being real.

Now, Brother Jesse I am sure that you are thankful for something even if the holiday is corrupted, right?

I might now agree with everything Brother Jesse has posted but at least he has the guts to attack various mindsets head on. I’m White also and I agree race is a major issue in this country and I don’t see it going away anytime soon. Look at the attacks on Obama…its sickening. BTW, I actually voted for Obama thinking we may could turn this think around but until we kill the mindset it will continue to duplicate itself in the form of corrupted human beings seeking to degrade another man because of the color of his skin.

Sad. Yet true…..Lastly, these blogs by brother jesse are some of the first times i’ve read something from the NOI that wasn’t emotional rhetoric. You’re an intelligent young man…just wondering what made you follow Farrakhan? Whom I can’t stomach.

I would be the first to say that “this is not new information” yet we have generations of ignorant adults who don’t even know this let alone our miseducated youth in this killing fields that they call schools.

This is one the things I have always admired about the NOI. In the midst of the festivities they don’t fear bringing up TRUTH. It’s not about busting up your happiness more so than it is about busting up LIES. We keep passing on these lies from generation to generation and think there is no consequence. Speak truth.

Conservatives don’t attack Obama because of his race. We attack him because of his policies. Maybe some of you must be ignorant to the many new black conservative Republicans that were recently elected to Congress and various State Legislatures. Oh, here’s what Obama said about Thanksgiving. It hardly jives with racist Jesse’s take:

He (Obama) also briefly discussed the heritage of the holiday, from the first harvest of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe to the first Thanksgiving declaration, which was made by Lincoln. Obama called on the country to remember Native Americans, members of the armed forces and the poor and needy on Thanksgiving.

The proclamation ended:

As Americans gather for the time-honored Thanksgiving Day meal, let us rejoice in the abundance that graces our tables, in the simple gifts that mark our days, in the loved ones who enrich our lives, and in the gifts of a gracious God. Let us recall that our forebears met their challenges with hope and an unfailing spirit, and let us resolve to do the same.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 25, 2010, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all the people of the United States to come together — whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors — to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

I guess FreedomThinkers somehow forgot about the Emancipation Proclamation. Which ironically, only freed slaves in Southern States. I am quite well read, by the way. Especially on matters pertaining to the War for Southern Independence. I have read half a dozen books by noted historian Bruce Catton on the War. And no, it was not a “civil war.” For it to have been a civil war, both sides would have been fighting for control of the Federal government. It was no more a civil war than the War for Independence was a civil war. The term “civil war” never existed until after the war’s end, when radical Republican newspapers in the North began referring to it as the “civil war.”

But simply read your hero Obama’s comments on Thanksgiving. I agree with everything he said, while you and your like-minded racist black Muslims obviously do not.

@Bevo I say again, you’re making NO SENSE. Obama has a script to read therefore you cannot compare his thoughts to that of Brother Jesse or Brother Alan, who actually is the one who wrote this article.

Politicians don’t speak their minds, they read from script. Even if Obama knows the truth about Thanksgiving, he dare not say it. Matter of fact, some people are taking issue with him even saying “God” in this proclamation. Dang shame….the money we spend with says “In God We Trust” yet its against the “law” for the Pres. to say God? Stupid.

After reading your last comments, I agree with Brother Jesse. You all have yet to DISPROVE anything that has been laid out by Brother Alan thus this conversation with you is pointless.

Oh, I suppose then that Obama was lying. You’re calling your hero Obama a liar? Obama intentionally lied to the American people? Is that what you’re saying? If so, then your hero is a liar. Obama is a liar. Glad we got that out in the clear.

My great grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee Indian born on a reservation in Oklahoma, a decendant of the Trail of Tears. My great grandfather was a Dutch Quaker, who believed in peace and non-violence and acceptance. My teacher was a black man from Louisiana who hated white crackers like me. Anyway, most of he white boys who died in battle in this country gave you the right to slam white people in your articles. Don’t forget that. Or you could go ask the kings in Western Africa why they sold your people into slavery in the 1500′s under a foreign flag, and not the American flag. Haven’t seen you mention that fact yet. Oh, but that’s not what you’re about…you’re about black supremacy and hatred.

Well researched, indeed. The rant claims that someone would pay $100 per Native American scalp in 1706. Do you have any idea how much money that was at that time?? How many more errors are in this propaganda piece?